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Eleven is the daughter of Teresa "Terry" Ives, a participant in the Project MKUltra experiments conducted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Eleven was taken from her mother at birth by Dr. Martin Brenner and was raised in the Hawkins National Laboratory in Hawkins, Indiana, as a test subject to develop her psychokinetic skills. When placed in a sensory deprivation tank she can engage in astral projection and access other dimensions, primarily for the purposes of international espionage. Eleven encounters a creature living in the Upside Down dimension, and on the evening of November 6, 1983, she finally makes contact with it. In efforts to make contact, Eleven opens a gate between the Hawkins Laboratory and the Upside Down dimension and the creature gains the ability to travel between the human world and the Upside Down.

She then escapes from Hawkins Laboratory and attempts to steal food from a local restaurant but the owner calls social services. The responding social worker, actually a Hawkins Laboratory CIA agent, kills the owner, causing Eleven to flee. She is then found by Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair and Dustin Henderson, who are looking for their missing friend, Will Byers. Mike allows Eleven to live in his basement. Eleven, fearing capture, asks Mike not to tell any adults about her.

Eleven helps to locate Will using her supernatural abilities, and determines that he is trapped in the Upside Down. However, the use of her abilities temporarily weakens her and gives her nosebleeds. The group sets out to find Will using their compasses, but Eleven interferes with their search when she realizes that they are being led towards the laboratory. Lucas, noticing her deception, becomes angry at her (having mistrusted her from the beginning). She flees, steals boxes of frozen waffles from a store, and consumes them in a forest. When Mike and Dustin are threatened by bullies, Eleven returns and saves them.

Mike, Dustin, and Eleven reunite with Lucas and make amends, and they travel to their middle school with Dr. Brenner and his associates in close pursuit. During the chase, Eleven uses her powers to cause a laboratory van to flip through the air. The group, aided by Joyce Byers, Chief Jim Hopper, Nancy Wheeler, and Jonathan Byers, produce a makeshift isolation tank with a pool and bags of salt. Eleven accesses the Upside Down and confirms that Will is alive. As laboratory personnel close in on the school, Mike tells Eleven that she can be a part of his family and asks her to the school dance. He then kisses her after struggling to explain his feelings towards her. Eleven helps the group escape by using her powers to kill most of the agents, although doing so leaves her drained. The monster from the Upside Down makes its way into their dimension, and Eleven seemingly sacrifices herself to destroy the creature and save her friends.

One month later, after a Christmas party, Hopper leaves the police station and drives to the woods. There, he leaves waffles in a concealed box. The whereabouts or condition of Eleven are left ambiguous.[2][3]

It is revealed that Eleven woke up in the Upside Down shortly after having destroyed the creature, and returned to the human world; however, with the government forces still searching for her, she was forced to flee into the forest, where she struggled to survive. She found the eggos Hopper left for her, and followed them to him. After this, the two move into a cabin in the woods where he forbids her to leave, fearing for her safety. Hopper hides Eleven for almost a year, telling no one of her whereabouts. During this time, Eleven has managed to gain better control over her powers; she is less weakened by the use of her telekinesis, and she is now able to project her mind into other dimensions without the use of a sensory deprivation tank. She uses the latter ability to listen to Mike's attempts to contact her, though she is increasingly frustrated at her inability to reply. Eleven also significantly expands her vocabulary during this time, learning from Hopper and television.

Eleven becomes restless and longs to reunite with Mike, and this causes tension between her and Hopper. She runs away from home one day and travels to Hawkins Middle School. When she finds Mike, he is with Max, a new student. Eleven mistakenly thinks that Max is Mike's new girlfriend and, out of spite, uses her powers to knock her off of her skateboard before leaving. Upon returning to the cabin, she gets into a heated argument with Hopper over her leaving the cabin, ending with her using her powers to damage the cabin out of anger. The next day, cleaning the mess she made of the cabin, she discovers by looking through records in the cabin's basement that her birth mother is alive, a contradiction to what Hopper had told her. She then goes to meet her birth mother, Terry, and her aunt, Becky, and discovers what happened to Terry at Hawkins Laboratory. While there, she realizes Terry is trying to talk with her, but due to her catatonic state, is unable to. Eleven, using her powers, views a flashback from her mother. Terry, after her daughter was taken from her, attempted to force her way into Hawkins Lab to save her. As a response, Brenner and his assistants captured her and subjected her to electroshock therapy, resulting in her current condition. Eleven then uses her abilities to find out she has a "sister" – another gifted girl taken by Dr. Brenner for experimentations – and sets out to find her.

Using her abilities once again, Eleven locates her sister and discovers that she is an older girl named Kali ("Eight"), with the ability to cause people to have visual hallucinations. Eleven stays with Kali and her friends – runaways who are determined to take revenge on people who have hurt them. Kali tells Eleven that while using her powers, she needs to think about what makes her most angry. When they go to get revenge on Brenner's assistant who helped hurt Eleven's mother, Eleven begins to choke him to death but stops upon realizing that he has two daughters. She then stops Kali from shooting him. While they are about to flee, Eleven realizes she needs to go back to her friends because they need her help.

Eleven goes back to Hawkins and is reunited with Mike and her friends after saving them from a Demodog. The group realizes that she needs to close the gate to the Upside Down, and she and Hopper head to Hawkins Laboratory. There, Eleven uses Kali's advice and focuses her anger into her powers, closing the gate and draining her powers. Afterward, it is discovered that Dr. Owens has forged a birth certificate allowing for Hopper to become her legal adoptive father as a way to help keep Eleven in hiding. Eleven's new legal name is Jane Hopper. Though she is still not allowed out for her safety, Hopper lets her attend the Snow Ball at Hawkins Middle School. She meets up with Mike, dances with him, and they share a second kiss.

The character and Brown's performance have received significant praise. Alice Vincent of The Telegraph wrote that "Millie Bobby Brown continues to be the star of the show: she has inspired fan art and tattoos, a worldwide acknowledgment of Eggos, the waffles her character devours and given a whole new life to the phrase 'mouth breather'".[4] Ashley Hoffman of TIME magazine recommended Eleven as a mascot for National Waffle Day.[5] However, Lenika Cruz of The Atlantic stated that "despite a rich backstory, Eleven is the show's most thinly sketched protagonist".[6]